Bulqize Concession

“This decision will definitively punish the Bulqize mine. The damage is very clear. The Bulqize Mine is not open and its longevity is counted with months, not years. It will not be possible anymore to extract the minerals and no one will open it any more”, Bello declared.

Three days ago, the Competition Authority announced that the “ACR” Company has sold 100% of the shares to the Blafin group, owned by the Albanian businessman, Samir Mane.

“The Company exploited the chrome mineral, transferred the profits and now is taking another large portion of money with the sale, and is leaving without any problem. They left behind a very large damage, as warned 2 years ago”, Bello declared.

According to the official data, published by the Ministry of Economy itself, ACR has not realized the 13 million EUR investments plan, which was obligatory through the agreement. The investments are related with opening the mine to increase its longevity. Bello says that the sale in these conditions should have been stopped.

“The concessionary company cannot leave by selling it. The government can make them leave, but after paying the obligations. We shouldn’t be expecting this company to leave after consuming its time without making the investments. They don’t make the investments and they leave. The companies profit from our resources and they leave without having any problem”, Bello declared.
 
The 12-year-long abuse with chrome

The departure of the Russian-Austrian company marks the end of an history of abuses and exploitations with one of the biggest public assets in Albania, the Bulqize chrome mine. The concession was approved in 2001 by the Socialist government.

The agreement had an obligatory plan of investments to increase security at work, improve technology and prolong its longevity. But the investment plan was not implemented by Darfo in the beginning and not even by ACR after them.

In 2009, when the legal deadline was over, both companies had carried out only half of the investments. ACR asked to postpone the deadline and the fine payment. Only two days after this request, the former Minister of Economy, Genc Ruli, approved the request with his own signature, by skipping the Parliament, which was the institution that had passed the concessionary agreement.

Ruli allowed the company to postpone the deadline until 2012. I parallel, the former Minister postponed the payment of the 1.6 million USD fine. But even after this new deadline the company did not complete the conditions. By the end of 2012, ACR had realized only 30% of the investments that should have ended by 2009.

The 1.6 million USD fine was never paid. Now the company is leaving after exploiting the chrome reserves for more than 6 years, taking profits without investing and leaving behind a large bill for the Albanains to pay.

The risk of the final closure of the mine has seriously affected its profitability. This puts an end to a concession that gave only one result: giving profits to companies and problems to citizens.

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